“From the code,” I said, in half soliloquy.
“From the what?”
“Oh, never mind, Hungerford. I suppose he is shadowing—Mrs. Falchion?”
He eyed me closely.
“I mean the woman that chucked his name; that turned her back on him when he was in trouble; that hopes he is dead, if she doesn’t believe that he is actually; that would, no doubt, treat him as a burglar if he went to her, got down on his knees, and said: ‘Mercy, my girl, I’ve come back to you a penitent prodigal. Henceforth I shall be as straight as the sun, so help me Heaven and your love and forgiveness!’”
Hungerford paused, as if expecting me to reply; but, leaning forward on my knees and smoking hard, I remained silent. This seemed to anger him, for he said a little roughly: “Why doesn’t he come out and give you blazes on the promenade deck, and corner her down with a mighty cheek, and levy on her for a thousand pounds? Both you and she would think more of him. Women don’t dislike being bullied, if it is done in the right way—haven’t I seen it the world over, from lubra to dowager? I tell you, man—sinning or not—was meant to be woman’s master and lover, and just as much one as the other.”
At this point Hungerford’s manner underwent a slight change, and he continued: “Marmion, I wouldn’t have come near you, only I noticed you have altered your course, and are likely to go on a fresh tack. It isn’t my habit to worry a man. I gave you a signal, and you didn’t respond at first. Well, we have come within hail again; and now, don’t you think that you might help to straighten this tangle, and try to arrange a reconciliation between those two?
“The scheme is worth trying. Nobody need know but you and me. It wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice to her to give him a taste of the thing she swore to do—how does it run?—‘to have and to hold from this day forward’?—I can’t recall it; but it’s whether the wind blows fair or foul, or the keel scrapes the land or gives to the rock, till the sea gulps one of ‘em down for ever. That’s the sense of the thing, Marmion, and the contract holds between the two, straight on into the eternal belly. Whatever happens, a husband is a husband, and a wife a wife. It seems to me that, in the sight of Heaven, it’s he that’s running fair in the teeth of the wind, every timber straining, and she that’s riding with it, well coaled, flags flying, in an open channel, and passing the derelict without so much as, ‘Ahoy there!’”
Now, at this distance of time, I look back, and see Hungerford, “the rowdy sailor,” as he called himself, lying there, his dark grey eyes turned full on me; and I am convinced that no honester, more sturdy-minded man ever reefed a sail, took his turn upon the bridge, or walked the dry land in the business of life. It did not surprise me, a year after, when I saw in public prints that he was the hero of—but that must be told elsewhere. I was about to answer him then as I knew he would wish, when a steward appeared and said: “Mr. Boyd, 116 Intermediate, wishes you would come to him, sir, if you would be so kind.”
Hungerford rose, and, as I made ready to go, urged quietly: “You’ve got the charts and soundings, Marmion, steam ahead!” and, with a swift but kindly clench of my shoulder, he left me. In that moment there came a cowardly feeling, a sense of shamefacedness, and then, hard upon it, and overwhelming it, a determination to serve Boyd Madras so far as lay in my power, and to be a man, and not a coward or an idler.